In View Of Recent Happenings Should This Have Been Treated So Lightly?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2620336/Teacher-narrowly-avoids-drinking-coffee-poisoned-ten-year-old-boys.html

/// It is believed the two pupils belonged to a gang at the school who called themselves 'The mafia', who had drawn up a 'hit list' of six teachers. ///

/// 'The evidence was taken away by police but were guided by the school that it was an isolated incident that got out of hand. I don't think the pupils realised the seriousness or the severity of the situation.' ///

[weecalf]

I often think it could be the wall to wall coverage such dreadful incidents get .The school teachers loss of life is terrible and should not have happened .could the coverage of the terrible incident influence others .so should the press and television coverage of such events be curtailed .

[Zeuhl]

If this had been 'treated less lightly' what actual difference would that have made to 'recent events'!

[New Judge]

I don’t think AOG was suggesting it would have made any difference to the outcome of other recent events. What I think he was suggesting (and I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’m wrong) was that since some children now seem to think little of sticking a knife into their teacher it might be a good idea if, when they do slightly less serious things, some action was taken to make them see that attempting to kill or do serious harm to others is not acceptable.

It may well be that the pupils failed to see appreciate the seriousness of their actions and that’s a very good reason for it being dealt with a little more seriously than it was. The school’s attitude to this and the handling of it by the police is very regrettable:

'The police are involved and we just want to draw a line under it…”

Yes, I’m sure they do.

'The school has dealt with the situation appropriately and we're hoping to move on.”

I disagree and their desire to “move on” is the last consideration.

“Neither the school nor the teacher are pressing charges.”

It is in the gift of neither the school nor the teacher to “press charges” or otherwise. That is a matter for the CPS and in my view they failed lamentably.

Apparently some of the pupils have formed themselves into a gang known as “the mafia”. When they add poison to their teacher’s flask and nothing much happens it is not too difficult to grasp why stabbing somebody is seen as the next progressive step in the scheme of things.

[anotheoldgit]

New Judge

Yes as always you have addressed matters correctly and most admirably.

[dunnitall]

Well said NJ, common sense too, why is it the powers to be cannot see common sense though! They deal too lightly with a lot of things where children are concerned and if parents don't exercise parental control then there's no hope that the children will know what is acceptable and what is not. Today they are exposed to too much graphic content in films, and on TV, sometimes not knowing what is reality and what isn't IMO.

[Zeuhl]

NJ

Unusually for you, you appear to be adopting aog's approach of less than rigorous thinking.

Contrary to your hypothesis there is no evidence that the recent classroom killer had threatened the life of a teacher but had that offence treated 'lightly'.

And there is no reason to believe that even if another case had been treated less 'lightly' , and he had been aware of it, that it would have altered his apparently irrational and unpredictable behaviour on the day.

So I think you were right to begin with; it would have made no difference, as I said. And it's difficult to imagine why (even applying so called 'common sense') why anyone would want to expend energy and resources on things that make no difference.

[whiskeryron]

I am risking the ridicule of the do good brigade here but in my opinion it all started to go downhill on the day that corporal punishment was banned in schools, after all it would appear now that in some schools discipline is so lax that pupils do pretty well what they want to do. A friend of my daughter was a dedicated career school teacher who left the profession because she found it impossible to get some to do as they were instructed,in fact it was quite usual for some pupils to leave their desk & walk out of the classroom because '' we don't like this subject in lessons''.

[New Judge]

I think you’ve somewhat missed my point, Zeuhl.

I’m not suggesting that (whatever the chronology) if the attempted poisoners had been treated more seriously the Leeds teacher stabbing would have been avoided. It certainly would have made no difference to that. However, your question “… why anyone would want to expend energy and resources on things that make no difference.” is a little strange.

Treating the ten year olds as criminals might, just might, have made them realise that poisoning people is a serious matter and they might, just might, grow up with a little more sense and consideration. It might also serve “pour discourager les autres”. But then none of this might happen. However for the police and the CPS to allow the school to handle what seems essentially a serious crime on the basis that taking proper action “will make no difference” is very curious. Presumably, given the irrational nature of the fifteen year old who killed his teacher any punishment he might receive is unlikely to make any difference. So are you suggesting we just ignore the matter? Or perhaps we should let the school (whose wish is probably just to “draw a line under the issue and move on”) deal with it “appropriately”.

My point is that if you allow ten year olds to pour bleach into their teacher’s drink without proper sanction you should not be too surprised if, by age 15, they feel ready to put a knife in her back.

[mushroom25]

there are policies framed both by schools and police services when incidents occur on school premises, and both give the school a degree of latitude as to how they can be dealt with - this may include dealing with the matter internally, even when the incident itself may include criminal behavior. the following is kent's policy, but all police services have similar.
http://www.kent.police.uk/about_us/policies/crime-intelligence/n17.html

[New Judge]

Yes, mushroom, 17 sections and five appendices of largely unadulterated waffle which illustrates why teachers have rather less time to teach than they should have.

Of course we only know what the Daily Wail tells us:

'Police were called to Clapham Community Primary School following a concern for a person's safety. Officers provided advice to pupils and teaching staff. 'It was determined it was an isolated incident and was dealt with internally by the school.

'The evidence was taken away by police but were guided by the school that it was an isolated incident that got out of hand. I don't think the pupils realised the seriousness or the severity of the situation.'

I read that to say that the school was more intent on hushing the matter up and “moving on” than they were in securing a proper outcome. As has been said, ten year olds carting bottles of bleach or whatever around in their school bags need to be taught the error of their ways. The Youth Justice system is scarcely fit to do that and I doubt very much that the school’s internal procedures were any better.